CHAPTER XXII
Ivan met him in the doorway. “You are punctual, Signor,” he said, as he ushered him into the shabby apartment.
“My friend, first of all, you are no longer an outlaw,” cried Corsini cheerfully as he cast his glance round the dingy room. “The Emperor himself has graciously accorded a full and free pardon, and if this night’s work turns out well, there will be a very handsome reward in addition. So, you see, things are marching.”
The outlaw stretched his hands out, and for a moment it seemed as if he would dissolve in tears. Then he recovered himself, and his voice rang out, clear and firm.
“And, at last, Signor, I shall have revenge on those who wronged me and my family.”
“Say rather, Ivan, justice, not revenge,” interrupted the young Italian mildly.
“It is the same, Signor, is it not?” cried Ivan. He pointed with his finger to an inert figure in the corner of the room, apparently inanimate.
“That is Stepan. I have given him a narcotic in order to prevent accidents. He does not look at his best at the moment. But just go and have a peep at him and see the likeness to yourself.”
Corsini crossed over the small room and looked at the prostrate form, of the man, wrapped in a deep slumber, and breathing heavily. Yes, Stepan might have been his twin brother under normal conditions.
“The time is short,” said the outlaw. “We must make you look as like Stepan as possible, with regard to the externals.”
He went to the door and whistled softly. A small, slouching man answered to the summons.
“Paul, my friend,” said Ivan in an imperious tone, “I have told you something of this affair. You have got to convert this gentleman into the speaking likeness of our sleeping friend. Do your little tricks at once.”
The small, slouching man went to work immediately. He stripped off the rough clothes from the slumbering man in the corner, and signalled to Corsini to divest himself of his own garments. In a trice, Corsini was dressed in Stepan’s habiliments. He then proceeded to stain his face and hands.
When all this was finished, he drew back with a sense of pardonable pride in his own deft handiwork.
“Mon Dieu! it is Stepan himself,” he cried enthusiastically.
Corsini took a survey of himself in a small, cracked mirror that hung in the shabby sitting-room. He cast a further glance at the inert form lying in the corner. Yes, in these rough clothes, with his face and hands stained, he could well pass for Stepan himself in a dim and doubtful light.
“It is just about time,” said Ivan, when these preparations had been completed. “My friend Paul will conduct you to the villa. There are seven windows on the ground floor, built very high. Underneath the fourth window the blank wall is of wood. You can feel it. There is a small door with a keyhole in the centre. Here is the key. Paul knows it well; he will lead you to it.”
The small slouching man led Corsini to the villa of Madame Quéro. The four silent men followed in their wake. Arrived at the villa, Corsini slipped easily into the small vestibule to await the arrival of the conspirators.
“You are well in time, Monsieur,” whispered the man, Paul, as he took his departure. “Do not answer the bell too quickly; watch its vibration before you respond. You must remember that Stepan is deaf. You will excuse me for giving you the hint.”
Paul departed. The four guards scattered themselves in various directions, but always ready to assemble together if danger threatened the man they were deputed to watch.
Corsini was alone in the little vestibule. He drew aside the heavy velvet curtains and peered into the inner room, a rather spacious chamber. This was very dimly lighted, too. But evidently Madame Quéro had given her instructions. A cold supper was laid out on the long table, with several bottles of champagne. Upstairs, no doubt, she was lying between life and death, no longer able to take part in these festivities.
The bell vibrated. Nello opened the door and made a low obeisance. Two men came through the narrow doorway. He recognised them at once: they were two highly distinguished noblemen of the Russian Empire. He had seen them several times at the Opera.
The bell vibrated again and again. Five more men passed through, and last came the tall, commanding figure of Zouroff.
In the dim light the Prince made his signs, “They are all here, Stepan?”
And the supposed Stepan replied in answering signs, “I think they are all here, Excellency.”
Zouroff passed through the heavy curtains. Corsini crouched behind and bent his ears to listen.
At first there was a confused babble of sounds. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. But fortunately they were speaking in French and not in Russian. It was easier for Corsini to catch what they said.
A tall, bearded man was speaking. “This infernal Corsini, for instance. No doubt he is in the pay of Golitzine. We cannot remove him, it seems.”
Zouroff took up the running. “I did my best, you know, gentlemen; but he escaped me, and since then Beilski has put a cordon round him that we cannot break through.”
“And yet Beilski is a fool,” growled the bearded man.
“I know,” answered Zouroff. “Beilski is what you say, but he has got Golitzine at his back, and Golitzine has the intelligence of several monkeys. When Beilski is in doubt, he goes to the secretary.”
Another man spoke. “You know we have every confidence in you, Prince; but we all know of your attachment to La Belle Quéro – by the way, why is she not here to-night, to preside over our festivities?”
Zouroff spoke in a harsh, strained voice. “La Belle Quéro is ill, confined to her room. You have probably not heard that she was attacked with sudden indisposition at the Opera to-night, and that her understudy had to take her place.”
None of the men had been at the Opera, they had not heard. One or two indulged in expressions of sympathy.
The bearded man, a powerful nobleman, only just second to Zouroff himself in importance and length of lineage, continued his remarks.
“I spoke just now of your well-known attachment to La Belle Quéro. Is it possible, Prince, that in an unguarded moment, you may have dropped some hints of your purpose to her? I did not wish, for a moment, to offend your amour propre, but rumour has it that she is very much attracted by this handsome young Italian. It is strange that he should have escaped you, who usually lay your plans so well.”
Zouroff paused for a moment before he replied. These men were as keen-witted as himself; it was impossible to deceive them for long.
“Gentlemen, I will be quite frank with you. One is always a fool where women are concerned. In a moment of ungoverned temper, I did hint to Madame Quéro something that might have set her wits to work, and she may have acted upon that.”
“From her penchant for the Italian?” suggested the bearded man, who, privately, was not too fond of the Prince, and always indulged in a pin-prick when possible.
Zouroff flushed a deep red. It angered him deeply that other persons should know Corsini had been preferred to him.
He looked round the assembly. He knew that the bearded man was bidding for the leadership that had been willingly accorded to himself. If his position were menaced, he must recover it immediately, and by a bold stroke.
He surveyed the small knot of men, his bold bearing and resolute demeanour at once challenging their allegiance, and compelling it.
“Gentlemen, I blench at nothing for the Cause to which we are all devoted, to which we have dedicated our lives and fortunes. On that occasion, I am convinced that La Belle Quéro betrayed me. Well, she will never betray us again. Madame La Quéro’s hours are numbered. That is why she has not appeared to-night.”
The men whom he addressed were as hardened and brutal as himself, with no respect for the sanctity of human life; but, as he spoke, a slight shudder went through the assembly. La Belle Quéro was so handsome, so popular; it seemed a thousand pities that she should be done to death, even in the interests of the Cause.
Zouroff spoke eagerly. At the moment he felt no remorse for having compassed the death of his former sweetheart with that poisoned chocolate. Had she not insulted him by daring to look with favourable eyes on another man?
“Gentlemen, it has ever been one of our fixed rules that anybody who betrayed us, man or woman, it matters not which, should pay the penalty of death. If I betrayed you, I should not complain if that law were put into execution against myself. La Belle Quéro betrayed us; she has paid the penalty.”
Zouroff was logical. The sense of the assembly was with him. The bearded man made a last effort to wrest from him his supremacy, not on the score of disloyalty, but for maladroitness in handling their common affairs.
“I very much regret that Madame Quéro should have allowed her heart to govern her head. She was a very charming woman,” he said smoothly. “Do you happen, by any chance, Prince, to have enemies in your own household?”
“Why do you ask me that question?” queried Zouroff boldly.
“One of my spies told me that Beilski has paid a recent visit to your sister, the Princess Nada. Beilski is not in the habit of paying afternoon calls. Does the young Princess know anything?”
Zouroff knew nothing of the visit of the General; it was news to him; but he grasped the situation promptly.
“I have already provided against that, Count. Her mother is in bed; a feverish cold, as we thought at first, has developed into diphtheria. I believe my sister is quite innocent of any serious designs against us, but it is always as well to be on the safe side.”
The other men listened with the closest attention. After all, Zouroff was the subtlest of them all. The bearded man maintained a sullen silence; he had given up all hope of rescuing the leadership of the party from the resourceful Prince.
“My sister I shall send to the old Castle of Tchernoff and keep her there as long as it suits my purpose. It is a veritable tomb, far away in the Caucasus. I have arranged that she starts to-night. Our good Stepan will later have his instructions. As he is practically deaf and almost incapable of speech, he can tell no tales. Besides, he is devoted to me.”
Corsini, close up against the curtains, had listened to all this with every nerve strained and his brain working at high pressure.
He had learned two things of great importance. Zouroff, in a roundabout way, had confessed to the murder of La Belle Quéro. Secondly, the Princess was to be taken that night to this gloomy castle in the Caucasus. And he, in his character of Stepan, the man who could not hear and only speak with the greatest difficulty, was to be an instrument in her abduction. Here was food for thought. Oh, for five minutes with that man of subtle brain and resource, Golitzine! At such a moment, even the inferior Beilski would have been welcome, even one of the four men waiting outside! How could he save the innocent young Princess from the vile schemes of her remorseless brother? A few minutes could alone decide this momentous issue. Why had she not taken his advice, proffered a few hours earlier?
The conspirators talked presently in lower tones of a great coup to be brought off to-morrow night at a big reception at the Winter Palace. But although they spoke almost in whispers, as if fearful of the magnitude of the stupendous event, Corsini had sharp ears and heard quite enough. This would be great news for Golitzine, as soon as he could see him.
The conference was ended, the supper partaken of. No servants ever assisted at these simple feasts. An hour after the meal was finished, La Belle Quéro, the handsome singer, the idol of more than one capital, had passed away in the arms of her faithful maid, done to death by the implacable vengeance of Zouroff.
One by one the traitors filed out. The Prince came last and made signs to the waiting janitor, supposed to be Stepan.
“You will come with me to the Palace. You will convey two women, my sister and her maid, to the Castle of Tchernoff, in the Caucasus. When you have deposited them safely there, return to the Palace, where I will find you further employment. It is very likely that Madame Quéro will have no further need of your services.”
Corsini replied in appropriate signs that he comprehended his Excellency’s wishes.
Together they drove to the side door of the Palace, in front of which a carriage was standing. Two burly men, the Prince’s chosen confederates, were beside it. Zouroff motioned to Corsini to stay where he was.
A few moments later the forms of two helpless women, the Princess Nada and her maid, were carried out and placed in the carriage. The Prince was well served in his household. Evidently both had been drugged.
The two men stood waiting for the sign of departure from the Prince.
And, in that moment, a flash of inspiration came to Corsini.
He spread out his arms and burst into a chuckling sort of laugh, like one demented. He sprang on the box, seized the reins, and whipped up the horses. He was well out of sight before the Prince and his two ruffians could recover from their consternation at the unexpected turn of affairs.
Had Stepan suddenly gone out of his sense? was the Prince’s first thought.
CHAPTER XXIII
Zouroff shook his fist at the retreating carriage. He looked, and felt, like a demon. Why had this fool taken this particular moment to go off his head? He knew that Stepan had suffered from a weak intellect for many years, but he was not prepared for this sudden ebullition of insanity.
“We cannot catch him up, your Excellency, he has driven like the wind,” remarked one of the two burly men who were in attendance on the Prince.
“Let him drive to the devil,” snarled Zouroff, in his most vicious tone. He was really trying to mask his alarm under an assumption of indifference. “What harm can the idiot do? He cannot hear, he can only make guttural, and unintelligible sounds when he attempts to speak.”
“He can write, your Excellency. Do not forget that. Say that at the moment he has gone crazy. That carriage will halt somewhere in St. Petersburg, or the environs, the police will be on the spot, inquiries will be made. If he cannot speak, they will make him write.”
But Zouroff by now had recovered his incurable optimism. “He will recover his senses shortly and drive back to the Palace for instructions. We will wait up for him.”
The two men were not quite so convinced, although they did not dare openly to dispute their employer’s opinion. They were not quite sure of Stepan’s sudden attack of insanity. There was more in this than met the eye.
Corsini, intensely agitated by the novelty of the unexpected situation, drove recklessly for the first few moments, anxious to put as much space as possible between Zouroff and himself, striving to collect his thoughts.
As he had sat silent by the side of the Prince on their progress from the villa to the Palace, he had thought well over the only plan of campaign that seemed open to him. At the first stopping-place on that long journey to the gloomy Castle of Tchernoff, he would alight, go to the nearest police station and divulge the facts of the Princess’s abduction.
Well, fate had ruled it otherwise. The unconscious girl and her maid were still in St. Petersburg and under his charge. Whither should he convey them? But he must be quick. Zouroff was a man of resource. He might have hired a passing conveyance and, accompanied by his two burly satellites, be rapidly on his track.
And then the thought came swiftly to him. He would turn the carriage round and drive by devious ways to the house of Golitzine. Once in the Count’s care, his precious charge would be safe. And, if he took that devious route, there would be no chance of encountering the formidable Zouroff on the way.
He halted at the door of the Count’s house; but here an unexpected difficulty awaited him. He dare not leave his horses, high-mettled and but slightly blown by their short gallop. Ah, there was a convenient lamp-post, a couple of feet in front of him. He would dismount and tie his reins round it while he knocked at the door.
While he was engaged in this task, a carriage drove up out of the dark, as it were, and halted beside the other one. A cold sweat broke out over the young man as he observed its arrival. This devil of a Zouroff had been too quick for him.
Then his countenance cleared as he recognised the first man who stepped out. It was the leader of his faithful bodyguard. He had, in the excitement of passing events, forgotten them.
“You have lost sight of us, Signor, but, you see, we have not lost sight of you,” said the chief of the party. “We followed you to that mean street where your friend lodged, we saw you come out transformed in appearance, we followed you to the villa of Madame Quéro, we drove behind you and Prince Zouroff to the Palace, we saw what happened there, and we came after you at lightning speed. Now, how can we help you? There is some strange work going on, that is easy to see. This is the house of Count Golitzine, you want to see him. But I expect they are all gone to bed.”
“Yes, my friend, so much has happened in the last hour or two that I had forgotten you,” was Corsini’s answer. “Tell one of the men to knock at the door till it is opened. If the Count has gone to bed, he must get up. And you and the others guard that carriage and look out for Prince Zouroff.”
The house seemed wrapped in darkness, and in fact everybody had retired to rest except the energetic Count himself. Five nights out of six he worked into the morning hours. To-night he had a special reason for sitting up late. At any moment he might expect a visit from the young Italian, to report the results of the meeting at the Villa Quéro.
He peered into the darkness and his astonished gaze rested on more than he expected to see. He was prepared to see Corsini, to observe the bodyguard lurking in the background; but the carriage and two impatient horses champing at their bits was more than he had bargained for.
“In Heaven’s name, what is this, Corsini?”
Nello advanced and whispered in his ear. “I dare say these men suspect as much as I know, but for the present we need not assume it. Inside that carriage are two helpless women, drugged by that ruffian Zouroff, the Princess Nada and her maid. I will tell you all the details of the adventure later. Enough to say that I have been able to rescue them from his clutches and drive them to your house. You will not refuse them shelter?”
“Of course not,” replied the Count at once. “Bring them in and I will at once arouse the Countess. Drugged, you say! Send round one of the fellows for the nearest doctor: he is the same man who succoured you at Pavlovsk. Stay, I will give the address myself.”
The two helpless forms were carried in. The Countess Golitzine was aroused. The doctor arrived. It was some time before he could bring them round. Zouroff and his satellites were evidently acquainted with the secret of a very powerful narcotic. He came down at length to the Count in his study, where he found Corsini.
“Good-evening, Signor. Well, Count, I have brought them back to consciousness, have prescribed a little light food. They were very heavily drugged.”
He turned to the young Italian. “It carries me back to that night at the little inn at Pavlovsk, but you were a more difficult case. Then you had had more than one dose. These young women have had only one. I should say, by the symptoms, a similar drug, administered by the same hand.”
“Right, doctor; I will tell you all in good time,” said Golitzine; “but perhaps in a few days all St. Petersburg may hear of it. You will see them in the morning?”
The doctor promised to call early the next day, but he assured them that they need fear no anxiety; both young women had vigorous constitutions. He was too discreet to mention that he had recognised one of them as the Princess Nada. He had often seen her at the Opera and driving in the Nevski Prospekt.
And Golitzine was a man to appreciate discretion; he could do much for this young doctor if he chose; therefore he would keep his mouth shut till it was time for him to open it. Golitzine saw him to the door and laid his finger impressively upon his lip.
“Silence for the present, doctor, as to all these strange events you have witnessed. I charge myself with your future advancement.” The doctor bowed and went his way.
Upstairs, Nada was slowly regaining her senses. She looked round the big, handsomely-furnished chamber. On a sofa, a little away, was stretched the form of Katerina, recovering more slowly than her mistress.
“How did I come here? Where am I?” she murmured.
The Countess Golitzine, a handsome woman, some twenty years younger than her husband, was sitting by the bedside, holding the Princess’s hand.
She whispered in a kind voice: “Do not speak much, my dear Nada, you are too tired; but be quite sure you are amongst friends. Do you recognise me?”
Memory came back in the wake of that long stupor. “The Countess Golitzine, of course; we met a few days ago. But why am I in your house and not at the Palace?”
She put her disengaged hand to her head and tried to collect her scattered thoughts. “Ah, I remember, my brother said he would send me to Tchernoff, and I did not believe he would dare to carry out his threat.”
She burst into bitter weeping as the subsequent events forced themselves on her half-numbed brain, her seizure by two burly men, a handkerchief pressed tightly over her face. Then a blank till she woke up here.
She was clearer now. “Yes, I can recall certain things. But how did I come here? How was I rescued on the road to Tchernoff?”
“My dear, I do not know myself. I had gone to bed early; my husband said he would be working into the morning, as is often his custom. I was in a deep sleep when he woke me suddenly. He told me that you and your maid were being brought in, that you were drugged, that he had sent for a doctor to bring you round. I have been here with the doctor till you came back to consciousness. Would you like to see the Count?”
“Indeed I would,” cried Nada, whose faculties were quickly coming back to her. “I cannot calm myself until I know what happened between my leaving the Palace and arriving here. And, as well as thanking you, dear Countess, for all your kindness to me, I would like to thank your husband also. It is not a time of night to receive uninvited, or unexpected guests.”
Madame Golitzine went down to her husband’s room and found him closeted with Corsini, who had given him a full account of the proceedings at the Villa Quéro, of his driving back with Zouroff to the Palace, of his stratagem in jumping on the box and driving off, to the surprise of the Prince and his two burly ruffians.
The Count had chuckled at the end of the narrative. Things were shaping well for him, to-morrow he would hear his Emperor’s hearty cry of – “Well done, Golitzine. I knew you would beat them in the end.”
“Corsini, my dear fellow, you are wasted on music. Give it up, and I will get you a big post in the Secret Police.”
But the Italian shook his head. “Many thanks, Excellency, but I do not really love this excitement. Music was my first love, it will be my last.”
The Countess came in. She knew Corsini well, but did not recognise him in the rough clothes of Stepan, with his face and hands stained.
“Nada is quite conscious and her faculties are coming back rapidly,” she told her husband; “but she is terribly anxious to know all that has happened since she was drugged. She wishes to see you. Of course, I can tell her nothing, as I have not had time to hear anything from you.”
“She is not too excited?” questioned the Count.
“Only from anxiety to know. She will grow very excited if she is kept much longer in suspense.”
The Count beckoned to Corsini. “Let us go to her. You can explain better than I.”
But Corsini shrank back and a hot blush showed through the dark stain that had been rubbed on his face in the mean lodging of Ivan the outlaw.
“I cannot present myself in these miserable clothes, disguised as I am, to the Princess,” he stammered.
The Count smiled his quiet rather cynical smile. “I will wager she will penetrate with the first glance through the disguise and the shabby clothes.”
He turned to his wife. “My dear, permit me to re-introduce to you Signor Corsini, the Director of the Italian Opera. He doesn’t cut quite such a brilliant figure as usual, but his excuse is that he has been doing some very good work for the Emperor.”
The Countess, a woman of charming manners, advanced to him with outstretched hands. “A thousand pardons. Please forgive my obtuseness, but my thoughts were so occupied with our poor dear Nada.” So adroitly did she redeem a somewhat awkward situation.
The three went up to the chamber whither the young Princess had been conveyed. The Count went to the bed and shook her warmly by the hand.
“My wife tells me you are recovering from the shock. The doctor assures me you will be yourself again to-morrow. I am only too pleased that my house should be your refuge. And you want to know all that has happened since your rascally brother had you drugged and thrust into that carriage.”
He drew forward the shrinking man, hovering shamefacedly in the background.
“Here is your preserver, Nada.” He always called her by her Christian name; he had known her from a child. “You see, he is a common man, dressed in rough clothes, his face and hands proclaiming his calling. But he is your preserver, and you will thank him.”
He spoke with that half-humorous, half-cynical smile which was almost characteristic.
Corsini nervously advanced to the bed on which the Princess was lying and recovering her scattered senses.
“You are safe, dear lady,” he said, softly. “Thank Heaven you are safe.”
She recognised the voice. She penetrated through the veil of the rough clothes, the stained face and hands. She uttered a little joyful cry.
“Ah, Signor Corsini, it is you who are my preserver?”
Corsini bent over her. “It has been my turn, Princess. You saved me at Pavlovsk, I have paid back my debt in St. Petersburg.”
The Princess’s wondering eyes grew bigger. “But tell me all that has happened. I am dying with curiosity.”
Golitzine touched his wife on the shoulder. “We are de trop, my dear, let us leave the young people together.”
The Countess was a very obedient wife. She accompanied her husband out of the room; but when they were outside she whispered to him: “Alexis, is it wise? Nada is a girl of high birth but of romantic notions. Corsini is, no doubt, very talented, but is it prudent to leave them together?”
“Listen to me; I am going to impart to you a little secret,” said the Count in a low voice. “To-morrow the house of Zouroff will be humbled in the dust. Our pretty little Nada can then well choose where her heart leads her to make her choice, even if it is in the direction of our young friend, Nello Corsini.”
“I think I understand,” said the Countess.
In the big chamber, Katerina, recovering more slowly than her mistress, was reclining on the sofa. A tall, white-capped nurse stood in the corner.
Nada, of course, paid no heed to servants. They were a part of her being, to be ignored at will. For all practical purposes she and Corsini were alone.
“And so it is you who were my preserver,” she said softly; “you in this rough garb, with your face and hands stained to a peasant’s hue. There must have been some motive behind such a dangerous adventure.”
Corsini bent over her, over the lily-white face, still looking wan after her terrible experience.
“It was Providence that led me to your aid to-night, Princess. You remember my urgent advice to leave the Palace at once.”
“I know I was blind and foolish,” murmured the Princess. “I could not believe my brother capable of such cruelty.”
“Your brother is capable of anything, of everything,” said Corsini. “Listen! I will tell you all that has happened to-night. Please understand that Count Golitzine has got him in the hollow of his hand.”
In a few brief words, he recounted all that he had overheard at the villa of Madame Quéro, Zouroff’s confession that for his own purposes he had removed the beautiful singer.
“To-morrow, or the day after, he will be on his way to Siberia,” concluded Corsini, with a pardonable exultation. “He doomed me to death because he found me in his way; he has murdered his old sweetheart from the sheer lust of revenge. You, out of that same spirit of vengeance, he would have condemned to a long exile. I trust, Princess, you will not mourn over the well-deserved fate of such a worthless brother.”
“No,” she said in a resolute voice, “I will not mourn over him. His outrage on me quenches the last spark of affection I ever entertained for him.”
The conversation was concluded. Corsini rose, and yet he still lingered. Something alluring in the sweet face of the Princess still drew him. But could he dare? There was a softness in her gaze, something inviting in her demeanour.
Youth was calling to youth. Suddenly he leaned over and pressed his lips on hers. They were met by an answering pressure.
“I love you, I love you, oh, I cannot tell you how much,” he murmured brokenly. “I have loved you ever since the night when you passed me in Dean Street and wanted to throw me coppers when I was playing in the gutter, and your imperious brother forbade you. I have loved you ever since that moment.”
And Nada murmured softly, “I love you, too. I cannot date it back to that night. I think it was when you came to play for us at the Embassy, in London. But it does not matter, dear Nello. We have both saved each other.”
“Yes, we have saved each other,” was Corsini’s answer. He left the white-capped nurse in the corner, the still tearful Katerina. What did he reck of these? Had not his beautiful Princess avowed her love with that warm kiss on his lips? What did anything else in the world matter?
Golitzine met him with his humorous smile. “Well, I have no doubt you have made good use of your time with the Princess. Now or never was your opportunity. To-morrow morning, in the Emperor’s cabinet, at the Winter Palace!”